


all good things

by neyvenger (jjjat3am)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Borussia Dortmund, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 06:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6693508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/neyvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco is never dating a teammate. They all leave eventually and he's got better things to do than nurse a broken heart.</p><p>Then Auba comes along and all his carefully constructed plans fly out the window.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all good things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mydrunkjoey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydrunkjoey/gifts).



> So yeah, maybe this has a little something to do with Mats leaving, but a lot more with [this quote](https://neyvenger.tumblr.com/post/143471992950/missrolls-according-to-sport-bild-auba-has) about Auba promising not to leave BVB as long as Marco plays there.
> 
> But mostly, it's for my [Joey](http://kaguava.tumblr.com/), who'd celebrated his birthday a few days ago. We bonded over Pierreus and I'm glad for it every day. Happy birthday! and I hope you enjoy this.

 

 

He won’t ever date a teammate, this is something Marco decides early on. It’d be convenient, sure, to be with someone who knows what the lifestyle is like, who’s always around and has the same interests, but it’s much too risky anyway. 

 

If they break up, the team dynamics could get all screwed up and messy, and Marco’s too invested in his career to let that happen. 

 

Or maybe either he or his partner would get sold off or traded, and Marco’s too invested in his heart to let that happen either. 

 

So he keeps his eyes down in the locker room, ignores clumsy overtures after beers and shared scoresheets, puts the boxes titled ‘lover’ and ‘teammate’ as far apart in his head as possible, compartmentalizing to a fault.

 

He’s doing alright for himself. And if he doesn’t let himself get close enough to linger on the doorway that shuts after all the lovers that leave, well, that’s just because he’s careful of his heart. It’s fragile and he doesn’t know what he’d do with it broken.

 

*

 

Auba comes with the summer, a confusing jumble of French and golden shoes, and his smile blasts through all of Marco’s defences, defying all definition and settling in all the empty frightened corners of Marco’s heart. 

 

There’s no caution with Auba, where their sides press together on the bench, warm and sticky. He tucks a strand of Marco’s hair behind his ear and Marco doesn’t think about pushing him away. Auba calls him “beau” and Marco believes him. Auba conquers his bed, his apartment, his life, in what feels like a minute, but is actually a few months, but still much too quickly than Marco thought anyone  _ could _ .

 

And then he comes into his kitchen one morning to find Auba conversing with the coffee maker, sleep muddled in cut-off sweatpants and a stolen T-shirt, rumpled and wonderful, and realizes he’s afraid.

 

He’s absolutely terrified.

  
  


*

 

Auba runs and keeps scoring, and the rumors grow. Marco follows them with a degree of obsession and focus he only usually applies on the pitch, and his bookmarks fill with possibilities he’s never wanted to consider, until he’s dizzy with odds and percentages, staring at Auba’s profile in the dark and thinking ‘maybe?’.

 

They keep playing. Auba keeps scoring and Marco keeps setting him up to score, running into his embrace afterwards and clutching at his back, at his shoulders, at his hands, long after everyone pulls away.

 

He watches Auba do interview after interview, washed out underneath the neon lights, his skin shiny with sweat and he wonders if he’s lying, if he can even read him at all.

 

April cuts sharp, through bonds of time and loyalty, turning triumph into ash and memories bitter. April comes and Marco can’t meet Mats’ eyes in the dressing room anymore. He breathes in the tomb quiet of the dressing room, fear gripping his heart like a vice, and looks at Auba from the corner of his eye and thinks ‘what if?’.

 

What if?

  
  


*

  
  


Auba notices. Of course he does. Auba notices everything about him.

 

“Hey,” he says, lowering the volume on a commercial break between parts of a movie they’re hardly watching, “Marco, is everything okay?”

 

And Marco feels his heart stutter and his blood roar too loudly in his ears, because what if this is _ it _ ?

 

“I’m fine,” he says, wincing at the strangled tone to it, at the way it makes Auba’s brow furrow.

 

“Marco?” Auba asks, and Marco can’t help looking at him. His eyes are warm and intent on Marco’s face. They’re dangerous, those eyes, always have been; they make him feel like he’s the only person in the world, when Auba looks at him like that. 

 

He isn’t. He knows that. Looking away makes it easier to remember. 

 

“We should break up,” he says, curling further on himself at Auba’s incredulous “What?”

 

He pulls his thigh under his body, a bad habit because it makes his knee twinge. But it’s okay. He needs the reminder tonight.

 

Not everything can last forever.

 

“You’re going to leave this summer,” he explains haltingly, “and I...I don’t think I can handle that so, we should break up.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere, Marco,” Auba says gently, but Marco shakes his head, “I’m not leaving, I told you. I told everyone who asked me.”

 

“So did Mats,” Marco says and the words fall heavy between them, suffocating.

 

“I’m not Mats, Marco,” Auba says, still so gentle and Marco grits his teeth in frustration, because doesn’t Auba think he knows that?

 

Mats isn’t the one that makes him coffee in the mornings, or the one who drives him to practice or the one who lets him try on his suits just to take them off him later. Mats isn’t the one he kisses.

 

But then again, Auba wasn’t the one who’d doused him with beer, the bubbles running over Marco’s skin like the joy bubbling beneath it. Auba wasn’t the one who helped him keep hold of the trophy that threatened to slip from his fingers, slick with sweat. Auba wasn’t the one who’d pressed his face into Marco’s neck in the crush of bodies and whispered “We did it, Marco, we did it,” until he felt the joy of it settle in his bones.

 

So hindsight. It’s 20/20.

 

“Look,” Marco tries to explain himself, “you’re probably leaving this summer, I know how this business works. And I don’t think I could handle that, you leaving. So I’m cutting it off now, get it over with, you know? It’ll hurt less, later.”

 

“But that’s not how it works! You don’t get to make that decision!” he’s never heard that tone in Auba’s voice before and it’s got him snapping up.

 

Auba looks devastated. Marco’s seen him after misses, after losses, after chances that slipped away, but he’s never seen him look like that. He’s never seen him look so lost before.

 

It occurs to him that he did that. He put that look on Auba’s face.

 

“I’m sorry,” Marco says, feeling the air seize in his lungs, “Auba, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

 

“I love you,” Auba says, calm and steady, and Marco takes a breath. They’d never said that before. “And I promise you that as long as you play for Borussia Dortmund, I’m not going anywhere else.”

 

And Marco...believes him.

 

He doesn’t realize the weight on his shoulders until it falls off and then all he can do is lean forward to press his lips against Auba’s, to chase the taste of fear and sadness off his tongue, pressing apologies to the bridges of his cheeks, muttering ‘'i love you’s” into his collarbones and sealing his own promises against the cut of Auba’s hip.

  
  


*

  
  


They lie there, after, spread across Marco’s couch, Marco’s head on Auba’s chest and Auba’s fingers in Marco’s hair, scratching gently at his scalp, their million dollar legs tangled together.

 

Marco’s still afraid, he’s still terrified. But like this, it doesn’t seem to matter. It seems easy, like everything with Auba is easy, their crooked lines mending into one long straight one. 

 

He listens to the thrum of Auba’s heart under his ear and his own doesn’t seem so fragile anymore.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So Mats Hummels announced a day ago that he was probably leaving BVB in the summer to go to Bayern. His bit refers to Borussia's 2011/12 Bundesliga winning season, when both he and Marco were part of the squad, but Auba wasn't at the club yet.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
